Nürburgring 24 Hours: Michelin's 25th Nürburgring win
Michelin shrugged off competition from rival tire firms to claim the 53rd Nürburgring 24 Hours in Germany's Eifel Mountains with Rowe Racing's BMW M4 GT3 (Farfus/Krohn/Marciello/Van der Linde). The Manthey EMA Porsche 911 R made it a one-two finish for Michelin which also came away with an enviable list of class victories.
A week after securing its 34th Le Mans success, Michelin took its score at the ADAC 24h Rennen to 25 wins in front of a 280,000-strong crowd. The annual trip to the Nürburgring's awesome 25.378-kilometer Nordschleife – commonly known as the Green Hell! - is one of the world's most coveted endurance contests for GT cars and this year attracted 141 entries.
Prestige manufacturers – notably German makes – long to win this race which is notoriously competitive. And that includes between tire brands, so Michelin and its partners prepare carefully by competing in the NLS (Nürburgring Langstrecken Serie) during the season.
This year, for a variety of calendar-related and other reasons, Michelin supplied just 12 of the 26 cars running in the headlining SP9 class in which no fewer than six tire firms had a realistic chance of success. However, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes-AMG, Lamborghini and Audi teams all placed their trust in Michelin's Pilot Sport slicks which rose to the occasion to collect an assertive one-two in uncustomary hot weather for the region.
The final order was topped by the #98 BMW M4 of Rowe Racing's Augusto Farfus, Jesse Krohn, Raffaele Marciello and Kelvin Van der Linde after a thrilling scrap with the Manthey EMA-run #911 Porsche 911 R (Kevin Estre/Ayhancan Güven/Thomas Preining). The latter actually led for much of the distance but lost a position after being handed a 100-second penalty for causing a collision. The #28 Abt Sport Lamborghini Huracan almost made it an all-Michelin podium but fell back due to a late transmission problem.
In addition to pole-position, the fastest race lap and a one-two finish, Michelin finished a lap clear of its best-placed tire rival to extend its unbeaten Nürburgring run since 2018
“After our ambivalent result at the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2023 and last year's shortened race due to poor weather, we were determined to demonstrate Michelin Motorsport's ability to respond and our reward was a one-two finish against some highly competitive rival tire brands. Extreme conditions saw the track temperature reach as high as 47°C, but our MICHELIN Pilot Sport range proved the fastest and most consistent over the weekend, so a big thank you to everyone who helped make that happen and to our partners for their loyalty.”
Meanwhile, as usual, numerous privateer teams chose Michelin for their visit to the Green Hell and solutions from the company's Customer Racing catalog confirmed their quality by topping classes AT2 (with the #644 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup), SP10 (#67 BMW M4 GT4), V6 (#410 Porsche Cayman GTS), Cup2 (#948 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup) and Cup3 (#962 Porsche 718 GT4 RS).